The Foundations of Word Recognition, Vocabulary,
and Fluency
Chapter Two
I. Improving Word Recognition
II. Building Vocabulary
III. Fluency: The Bridge from Decoding to Comprehension
Introduction
High school biology students stumbling over the pronunciation of the word cytoplasm.
Social studies students decoding the words “anarchy” and “theocracy” yet not understanding the words’
meanings.
English students reading a passage in a short story so haltingly that they can’t engage in a group
discussion afterwards.
Comprehension Strategies
Vocabulary
Background Knowledge
Fluency
Comprehension
Word Recognition
The Alphabetic Principle and
Phonics
Phonemic and Phonological
Awareness
Decoding
Book and Print Awareness
As discussed in Chapter One, since most secondary
students have certainly mastered book and print awareness
and often progressed past the basics of phonemic and
phonological awareness, the alphabetic principle, and basic
phonics, the above anecdotes represent some of the
challenges that you may face with your secondary students,
in a content area classroom or in an English classroom.
Each scenario illustrates one of the foundational reading
skills with which our secondary students typically struggle:
word recognition, vocabulary, and fluency. In this chapter,
we’ll expand our understanding of these important areas of
reading and share strategies for building students’
proficiency in these skills in both a secondary English class
and other content area classes.
I. Improving Word Recognition
The strand of word recognition builds on the ability to sound out words, given knowledge of the soundsymbol correspondence and spelling patterns (i.e., the alphabetic principle and phonics). Word
recognition involves breaking up a multisyllabic word into components and using meaningful word parts,
such as un-, anti-, hydro, and –ment to decipher the word. The ultimate goal of word recognition is
“automaticity,” or recognizing the majority of words automatically. By the end of third grade, the majority
of students should have mastered the key sound-symbol relationships of phonics instruction.
The majority of middle and high school students across the country do not struggle with reading at the
phonics level of decoding—even students in our classrooms. If students do struggle with reading
common single syllable words, given that they should have mastered those skills between Kindergarten
and third grade, they either received poor instruction in elementary school or they may have a reading
disability. If you teach students with this level of deficiency, you will need to reach out to a special
23
The Foundations of Word Recognition, Vocabulary, and Fluency
educator or other expert in reading disabilities. As a starting point, you might also want to access the
Elementary Literacy text, specifically chapter three, which outlines the background knowledge and
teaching strategies you would need to effectively individualize your instruction for students whose
decoding skills are dramatically below grade level. Since many of our students will struggle with word
recognition, specifically breaking down multisyllabic words, using meaningful word parts, and
recognizing words with automaticity, we should expect to integrate strategies that will build student’s
word recognition skills.
Strategies that Improve Word Recognition
Cajoling students to “just sound it out,” or reading the word for the student when he stumbles with the
pronunciation, substitutes another word, or skips over it entirely, proves an either ineffective or shortterm solution to poor word recognition. Below we discuss four strategies for improving students’ word
recognition skills that secondary teachers of any content area could implement.28 All of these strategies
reinforce the important concept that words are made up of several components, a point could be a bit of
an epiphany for your struggling readers.
1. Prompt students to get their mouths ready.29
A common phrase in an elementary classroom, secondary students can also benefit from being
encouraged to “get their mouths ready” for a word that stops them in their tracks. Rather than
prompting students to “just sound it out,” you will help students to focus on producing the initial sounds
of the word, which the vast majority of secondary students will be able to do given their understanding of
sound-symbol correspondence. “Reminding students to ‘get your mouth ready’ forces students who
normally sit and stare at an unknown word to actually do something…often they can recognize the first
syllable of a word. As they read the sentence up to the word that is unknown and then read the first few
letters of the word, often they can predict what the entire word should be as they combine semantics
(what the sentence is about) with graphophonics (letter-sound relationship).”30 Consider the following
classroom example:
As Conner read the sentences, “He was huddled into a corner. He was too afraid to
move,” he paused at huddled. He just stared at it and then looked at me. Prior
experience told him that if he waited long enough, the teacher would tell him the word.
Instead, I said, “Get your mouth ready to say those first few letters.”
He looked back at the page. He whisper read /hud/ and then he started reading again:
“He was hu…” He stopped and looked at me. I asked him to cover up the hud part of the
word and to get his mouth ready to say the rest of it. He looked at it and said “dl.” I
asked him what the end sound would be and to move his mouth to that sound. He made
the /d/ sound and then said, “dled.” I told him to read the sentence again, trying the
entire word. He read, “He was hud-dled,” and then said, “Oh huddled, he was huddled.”
He finished the selection, and then I asked him to reflect on how he figured out the word.
“Well, you know, I just kept trying to make my mouth like say the sounds. Usually, I just
look at the word, but looking doesn’t really help you hear the sounds.”31
28 Section modified from Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, 2003, and Blevins, Wiley. Teaching Phonics & Word Study in the Intermediate Grades. New York:
Scholastic Professional Books, 2001.
29 Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003, p. 239.
30 Ibid p. 240.
31 Ibid p. 241.
24
2. Teach common rime and syllable patterns to help students break words up into chunks.
Teaching students to break words up into recognizable syllable and rime chunks is increasingly
important in secondary classrooms where students encounter multisyllabic words. As you’ll recall from
chapter one, a “rime” is the vowel and following consonants in a syllable, for example, the –eat in meat or
the –unk in sunk (the m- and the s- in those two words are called the “onset”). In elementary school,
students were ideally taught about word families (meat, heat, seat) and learned to decode those words
not as /m/ /ea/ /t/, but as /m/-/eat/, which is much faster to blend and ultimately more accurate.
The teaching of rime patterns is made somewhat easier
given that 37 rimes make up 500 words, as shown in the
adjacent chart.32 When a student has consistent trouble
breaking down multisyllabic words, consider working
individually with them on various rime patterns. You might
show students words containing similar rime patterns
(chlorine, fluorine, bromine) and asking them what is the
same in each word. Then, you might encourage them to
brainstorm other words that contain similar rime patterns.
This process should help students see words as not one big
overwhelming string of letters, a common perspective of
students with weak word recognition, but as a composite of
several recognizable chunks. The ultimate goal of this type
of instruction is to help your secondary students transfer
their rime recognition to the analysis of, for example, the
rimes –an, -ip, and –ate within manipulate, and decode the
word that way, rather than phoneme by phoneme.
Most Commonly Used Rime Patterns
37 rimes make 500 words
A
E
I
O
U
-ock
-uck
-eat
-ice
-ack
-oke
-ug
-ell
-ick
-ail
-op
-ump
-est
-ide
-ain
-or
-unk
-ight
-ake
-ore
-ill
-ale
-in
-ame
-ine
-an
-ing
-ank
-ink
-ap
-ip
-ash
-at
-ate
-aw
-ay
In addition to rimes, teaching common syllables helps students see the “trees” in the “forest” of a
multisyllabic word that they will encounter in your content area. Studies have shown that “through
systematic, focused instruction on…common syllable patterns, students’ ability to read longer words can
be improved.”33 Conveniently, there are charts of the most common syllables in the English language for
you to consider when doing this type of targeted instruction with students. The first fifty most common
syllables are below.34
1. ing
2. er
3. a
4. ly
5. ed
6. I
7. es
8. re
9. tion
10. in
11. e
12. con
13. y
14. ter
15. ex
16. al
17. de
18. com
19. o
20. di
50 Most Common Syllables
21. en
31. pro
22. an
32. ac
23. ty
33. ad
24. ry
34. ar
25. u
35. ers
26. ti
36. ment
27. ri
37. or
28. be
38. tions
29. per
39. ble
30. to
40. der
41. ma
42. si
43. un
44. at
45. dis
46. ca
47. cal
48. man
49. ap
50. po
32
Ibid p. 234 (modified).
Blevins, Wiley. Teaching Phonics & Word Study in the Intermediate Grades. New York: Scholastic Professional
Books, 2001, p. 187.
34 Ibid p. 196.
33
25
The Foundations of Word Recognition, Vocabulary, and Fluency
To see how these threads of instruction merge to build a students’ word recognition, consider a transcript
of an eighth grade student breaking down a word. Note how the student relies on her understanding of
rimes and syllables to chunk the word into smaller parts:
Jasmine: [Looking at meaningful]. Boy, this one is long. Um. /m/. No wait, there’s –f-u-l
and that says /ful/. Right. And, there’s –i-n-g and that’s, you know, /ing/. So this part
here [puts her index finders around the letters ingful] says /ingful/. So that just leaves
this [moves index fingers to border mean]. Well, e-a-n, that’s like in bean-see right up
there on the wall [points to rime wall that has words arrange by onset-rime]. So, /mean/. Oh, mean. /Mean-ing-ful/. Meaningful.
Teacher: That’s good, Jasmine. Meaningful. How’d you figure that word out?
Jasmine: Well, at first I was getting lost. It’s so long. But then I saw some parts I already
knew, and then I looked at this part here and recognized it. So I was, I guess, you know
what we called chunking. Yeah, I was like chunking it.
Teacher: What would you have done last year, before you had learned about chunking?
Jasmine: You know, other teachers, you know my reading, it’s not too good, because all
the words, you know, they are like so long. And other teachers they are always like going
“sound it out” and so you just try to go through all the letters, but sometimes then the
word, it isn’t like making any sense. So, mostly, I was just stopping. Just stop. If you
stop, someone will tell you the words.
Teacher: What about this year?
Jasmine: Well, now, you know, now it’s like I’ve got some other ways, you know, like I
can chunk or find parts that I know. Now it’s like big words are really just a lot of like
small parts put together.35
The best way to teach students to chunk their words is to follow the same steps you would use to teach
any other skill: introduce the chunking skill, model the skill, practice the skill with students, and have
students practice the skill on their own. As the above vignette illustrates, the skills of recognizing rimes,
recognizing syllables, and chunking the word are synergistic, and would need to be taught simultaneously
to be most effective.
3. Teach prefixes, suffixes, and root words.
The strategy of teaching prefixes, suffixes (collectively called affixes), and root words could be included in
this section on improving students’ word recognition, or it could be included in part II below on building
students’ vocabulary. Learning affixes and roots involves both being able to identify them in a word and
pronounce them (which leads to better word recognition), and knowing how they change the meaning of
the root word (which increases vocabulary). Here, we’ll talk about what affixes and root words to teach.
In part II on vocabulary, we’ll talk specifically about strategies to help students apply the meanings of
affixes and roots to build vocabulary knowledge.
35
Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003, p. 236.
26
As you are probably aware, a prefix is a group of
letters added to the beginning of a base word that
changes the word’s meaning. For example, un-, the
most common prefix in the English language,
means either not (as in unstable, a term a
chemistry teacher may refer to frequently) or do the
opposite of (as in unearth, a term perhaps heard in
a social studies classroom). A suffix is a group of
letters added to the end of the base word that
changes the base word’s meaning. For example,
the -or in senator indicates that the word means a
person related to the senate.
I teach the 20 most common prefixes and the 20
most common suffixes. I also teach roots. I
teach the students that the prefix is like the
engine of a train, the root is like the train car, and
the suffix is the caboose. I cut out engines, train
cars, and cabooses from thick paper and write a
different prefix, root, or suffix on each one. The
students practice mixing and matching the word
parts to make new ‘trains’ and new words.
Alix Horton, RGV ’03
7th Grade English
The following table provides an overview of the twenty most common prefixes and their meanings.36
Prefix
un- (not, opposite of)
Re- (again)
in-, im-, ir-, il- (not)
dis- (not, opposite of)
en-, em- (cause to)
non- (not)
in-, im- (in or into)
over- (too much)
mis- (wrongly)
sub- (under)
The Twenty Most Frequent Prefixes
Words with
Prefix
the Prefix
782
pre- (before)
401
inter- (between, among)
313
fore- (before)
216
de- (opposite of)
132
trans- (across)
126
super- (above)
105
semi- (half)
98
anti- (against)
83
mid- (middle)
80
under- (too little)
Words with
the Prefix
79
77
76
71
47
43
39
33
33
25
The table below shares the twenty most common suffixes and their meanings.37
The Twenty Most Frequent Suffixes
Words with
Suffix
the Suffix
-s, -es (plurals)
31%
-ity, -ty (state of)
-ed (past-tense verbs)
20%
-ment (action or process)
-ing (verb form/present participle)
14%
-ic (having characteristics of)
-ly (characteristic of)
7%
-ous, -eous, -ious (possessing the
qualities of)
-er, -or (person connected with)
4%
-en (made of)
-ion, -tion, -ation, -ition (act, process)
4%
-er (comparative)
-ible , -able (can be done)
2%
-ive, -ative, -itive (adjective form
of a noun)
-al, -ial (having characteristics of)
1%
-ful (full of)
-y (characterized by)
1%
-less (without)
-ness (state of, condition of)
1%
-est (comparative)
Suffix
Words with
the Suffix
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
36 Modified from Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003,
and Blevins, Wiley. Teaching Phonics & Word Study in the Intermediate Grades. New York: Scholastic Professional
Books, 2001, p. 206.
37 Modified from Blevins, Wiley. Teaching Phonics & Word Study in the Intermediate Grades. New York: Scholastic
Professional Books, 2001, p. 215.
27
The Foundations of Word Recognition, Vocabulary, and Fluency
Secondary English teachers should probably focus on teaching these most common prefixes and suffixes
in order to help students break apart words into manageable chunks, with content area teachers focusing
on the less pervasive but still content-area-critical Greek and Latin affixes and roots, such as -phobia,
-logy/logist, -therm-, tri-, centi-, circum-, etc.
Common Latin Roots38
Audi
Hear
Dict
Speak
Port
Carry
Rupt
Break
Scrib/script Write
Spect
See
Struct
Build
Tract
Pull, drag
Vis
See
Common Greek Roots
Auto
Self
Bio
Life
Graph
Written or
Hydro
Meter
Ology
Photo
Scope
Tele
Therm
drawn
Water
Measure
Study of
Light
See
Far, distant
Heat
Audience, auditorium, audible, inaudible, audition
Dictate, predict, contradict, verdict, diction
Import, export, portable, porter, transport
Abrupt, bankrupt, erupt, interrupt, rupture
Describe, inscribe, prescribe, scribe, describe, script, transcript, prescription
Inspect, respect, spectacles, spectator, suspect, perspective
Construct, destruct, destruction, instruct, structure
Attract, detract, contract, subtract, traction, tractor
Visible, supervise, vision, visionary
Automobile, automatic, autograph, autotrophy, autobiography
Biography, biology, biodegradable, biome, biopsy, antibiotic,
Graph, graphic, graphite, seismograph
Dehydrate, hydrogen, hydrant, hydrodynamic, hydraulic, hydrophobic
Barometer, centimeter, diameter, thermometer
Geology, biology, hydrology
Photograph, photocopy, photogenic, photosynthesis, photoelectric
Microscope, periscope, stethoscope, telescope
Telephone, telescope, telecast, telegram
Thermometer, thermos, thermal, thermosphere
As we’ll discuss in more depth the second part of this
I teach my students 1 Latin root a week (such as
chapter, you should teach students the meanings of these
pre or ex). Their vocabulary for that week
roots in categories. For example, if an earth science teacher
consists of 5-8 words that are based on that Latin
were teaching about geothermal vents, she might take a few
root (explore, explode, etc.). By learning 1 Latin
minutes to break down the word “geothermal” and discuss
root and a handful of words that get their
the meaning of its two Greek roots: geo (relating to the
meaning from that root, students recognize more
earth), and thermal (of, relating to, using, producing, or
unfamiliar words as they read, and can figure out
caused by heat). The teacher could then ask students to
difficult words that might otherwise make them
brainstorm other words with similar roots and consider their
put their book down.
meanings. For geo, students might come up with geography,
geology, geologist, and geometry. The last word, geometry, Laura Brewer, DC ‘04
Senior Managing Director of Institute,
might stump students in terms of its relation to the earth.
New York
However, our example teacher, who might have anticipated
Teach For America
this response and therefore looked it up ahead of time, could
explain that early uses of the word geometry described the
measurement (-metry) of land (geo-). A similar quick brainstorming exercise could be done with thermal, with
students offering the words thermometer, thermos, and thermostat. Either the teacher or the students could
draw out the meaning of therm: heat. This mini-lesson will help students interact with the word geothermal
meaningfully—one of the key principles of vocabulary instruction, as you’ll read—and firmly imbed the
meaning of the word (heat from the earth) in students’ minds for later application. Clearly, some
Modified from Blevins, Wiley. Teaching Phonics & Word Study in the Intermediate Grades. New York: Scholastic
Professional Books, 2001, p. 230, and Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann, 2003, p. 315 – 322.
38
28
aspects of instruction in word recognition, in particular what we are modeling here, steps over the line to
vocabulary instruction, the focus of the part II below.
4. Use word walls to teach and reinforce the high-frequency words of your content area.
One best practice for building students’ word recognition is to provide them with a constant visual
reminder of the frequently encountered words in your content area and/or current unit in the form of a
“word wall.” For example, an earth science teacher might post on the wall an alphabetized list of the key
words for a unit on phenomena that alter the surface of the earth, such as weathering, glaciation, crustal
deformation, volcanoes, etc. A seventh grade English teacher whose class is reading the novel Scorpions
by Walter Dean Myers might post the words innocence, appeal, and temptation, among others. In all
cases, your word wall should be organized alphabetically and in font large enough for students to easily
read from their seats. Students can have their own personal word “walls” as well, either on a single
sheet of paper or as a collection of flash cards. These personal word walls should contain words they
struggle in recognizing. An example of a personal word wall is in the Secondary Literacy Toolkit (p. 8),
which can be found online at the Resource Exchange on TFANet. 
The word wall is not something you should have filled in for the unit’s introductory lesson; rather, you
should build it with your students over time, constantly adding words that students find challenging to
identify with automaticity in the current area of study. For the word wall to truly improve word
recognition, you’ll need to refer to it whenever an already posted word occurs in your reading, and
encourage students to refer to it when incorporating those words into their writing.
Use of word walls, while one strategy for building students’ rapid recognition of words, also provides
students with multiple exposures to words, one of the principles of effective vocabulary instruction
discussed below.
II. Building Vocabulary
Teaching the new words you and your students will undoubtedly encounter in your content area is central
to meeting the content-specific goals of your long-term plan, as increased vocabulary development leads
to increased reading comprehension—a crucial skill when much of your content-specific information will
come from texts.
While we all find ourselves in a position to teach vocabulary, not all teachers recognize the challenge of
effective vocabulary instruction. Unfortunately, perhaps the most obvious (if not most common)
approaches to vocabulary instruction are also the least effective. All of us probably remember having to
look words up in the dictionary and memorize their meanings, or being presented with a list of ten or
more unrelated words to be learned each week. Consider the reflections of Janet Allen, high school
English teacher and author of Words, Words, Words, on these conventional teaching practices:
When I began teaching, I ‘taught’ vocabulary the same way my teachers had taught me: I
assigned lists of words; asked students to look them up in the dictionary and write them
in sentences; and gave weekly vocabulary tests. Those exercises then gave way to
programmed vocabulary books. My students and I worked our way through levels A-F,
but it didn’t take long for me to realize that these exercises didn’t increase their
speaking, reading, and writing language any more than looking words up in the dictionary
had. Students seldom (never) gained enough in-depth word knowledge from this practice
to integrate the words into their spoken or written language. These exercises did,
however, keep them quiet for long periods, and I was doing what all veteran teachers I
29
The Foundations of Word Recognition, Vocabulary, and Fluency
knew were doing, so I truly wanted to believe that students were learning from this
activity.39
These familiar approaches to teaching new words are all but useless as instructional methods, as
researchers attest:
The most frequently used inappropriate technique is that of giving students a list of
words out of context and telling them to look up their meanings in the dictionary. Three
facts argue against this. First, most words have several meanings and many shades of
meaning. Taken out of context, there is no way for students to decide which dictionary
definition is most nearly appropriate. Second, unless a learner has some knowledge of a
word and its meaning already, dictionary definitions are often inadequate. In general,
dictionaries are more useful for students to use in checking the meaning of a totally
unfamiliar word. Finally, asking students to do something does not constitute
instruction.40
So, what are we to do? Researchers generally agree that students can learn some new words (perhaps 3
to 15 new words out of 100 unfamiliar words) by reading them and determining their meaning from
context.41 This slow progress of learning words in context is most likely due to the fact that discerning
the meaning of a word through the oft-espoused “context clues” is surprisingly challenging, especially for
struggling readers. Using context clues requires active engagement with the text (something struggling
readers do not do, as will be discussed in chapter three). Specifically, using context clues demands the
ability to make connections to background knowledge and make inferences within the passage, often
beyond the surrounding few sentences. Next time you come across an unfamiliar word in a text, try to
track the cognitive circumvolutions you use to determine the meaning from the context clues. 42 It isn’t
always easy. And for struggling readers, it is often an impossible task.
As opposed to relying solely on students learning new vocabulary words from context clues while reading
independently, researchers promote systematic and explicit vocabulary instruction, especially for
struggling readers and students with weak vocabularies. When engaging in this explicit vocabulary
instruction, the most effective approaches require that the teacher:
1. Carefully choose a limited number of words and provide a direct, student-friendly
explanation of their meanings.
2. Create meaningful interactions with the words in a variety of formats and contexts.
3. Ensure the students have multiple exposures to the new words.
Let’s look at each of these three points in turn to see how we can help students learn, use, and remember
the vocabulary words we teach them.
Allen, Janet. Words, Words, Words. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers, 1999, pp. 2 and 10.
Ryder, Randall and Michael Graves. Reading and Learning in the Content Areas, 2nd edition. Wiley Text Books,
2002.
41 Baumann, James and Edward Kame’enui. Vocabulary Instruction: Research to Practice. New York: The Guildford
Press, 2004, p. 15.
42 If you didn’t automatically know the meaning of circumvolution, you probably first thought about the context in
which it was used: to describe the challenging mental steps people go through to determine a word’s meaning. Then,
you looked at the prefix, circum, and knew that meant “around.” Volution might have posed more of a problem, but
you know other words with that root, such as “revolution,” and so probably deduced that it had to do with turning.
You pretty much got it: Circumvolution, noun. The act of turning, winding or folding around a central axis. Whew.
39
40
30
1. Carefully choose a limited number of words and provide a direct, student-friendly explanation of
their meanings.
Ask a struggling reader to choose her own vocabulary words to study—an approach filled with the good
intention of giving her ownership of the words—and she will probably come up with an overwhelming list.
If you went through an upcoming chapter in a textbook or short story and identified all the words that you
anticipated students not knowing, you would probably come up with an overwhelming list as well. As
teachers, we need to know how to narrow our focus for the number of words we teach our students. How
do we do that? First, consider how researchers Margaret McKeown and Isabel Beck have grouped an
individual’s vocabulary into three tiers:43
Tier one: the most basic words, such as water, picture, girl, money, that rarely require explicit
instruction in school, as their meanings are acquired through day-to-day conversation.
Tier two: words that occur in the vocabulary of “mature language users” and are used in a variety
of written and oral communication, such as compromise, scrutinize, diligent, and typical.
Tier three: words that are mostly unique to a particular domain of knowledge, such as
watershed, rhombus, amnesty, and colonnade.
As a general rule of thumb, English teachers should focus on tier two words, perhaps the most critical for
our students to master in order to have a broadly applicable vocabulary and enhanced reading and
writing ability. Content area teachers should teach tier two words when necessary and appropriate, but
are primarily responsible for teaching tier three vocabulary words, as those are most likely crucial to the
understanding of the major concepts of the content area.
When choosing what tier two or tier three words to explicitly teach and reinforce with students, consider
the following questions you might ask yourself:



Which words are most important to understanding the text we are going to read and/or the
concept we are about to study?
Which words do students already have prior knowledge of?
Which words can be figured out from the context?
Students can help you answer these questions if you provide them with charts that help them group
words into the categories of (1) totally new/don’t know at all, (2) have seen or heard this word before, but
don’t know the meaning, (3) think I know the meaning of this word, and (4) know the meaning of this word.
A sample “Organizer for Diagnosing Word Knowledge” is in the Secondary Literacy Toolkit (p. 9); this
Toolkit can be found online at the Resource Exchange on TFANet. 
When carefully choosing vocabulary words to teach explicitly, consider not only words that students will
come across in various texts, but also the words you want students to use when talking about or writing in
your content area. Teaching students the “academic” language of your content area will propel them
forward in their ability to apply their knowledge in conversation and writing, both important to building
confidence and deepening their comprehension. The two charts below share academic language you
might consider weaving into your vocabulary instruction.
Baumann, James and Edward Kame’enui. Vocabulary Instruction: Research to Practice. New York: The Guildford
Press, 2004, p. 14.
43
31
The Foundations of Word Recognition, Vocabulary, and Fluency
Academic Language for All Content Areas44
Simple Academic Sentence Frames
I think that…
I believe that…
This report is divided into x sections.
We intend our report to…
I hypothesize that…
We concluded that…
I discovered that…
In addition, I think…
Academic Verbs
Acquire
Allude to
Analyze
Anticipate
Associate
Claim
Collect
Convince
Communicate
Compare
Contrast
Contribute
Connect
Conclude
Create
Critique
Describe
Demonstrate
Determine
Differentiate
Discuss
Enhance
Enable
Evaluate
Examine
Express
Extended
Extract
Furthermore…
In this report, I will…
This document reports…
In my opinion…
In conclusion…
I disagree with x because…
This section contains…
In order to understand…
The purpose of this paper…
Facilitate
Frame
Focus
Generate
Hypothesize
Indicate
Identify
Inform
Integrate
Introduce
Inquire
Investigate
Justify
Juxtapose
Manipulate*
Pursue
Organize
Realize
Reconsider
Respond
Refer
Relate
Represent
Sequence
Synthesize
Summarize
Symbolize
Trace
Academic Language for English/Language Arts45
Words to Describe Plot
Realistic
Good pace from scene to
scene
Suspenseful
Satisfying ending
Subplots tied together well
Well-developed ideas
Words to Describe the Theme
Important message
Subtle*
Unique
Powerful
Memorable
Unrealistic
Plodding
Predictable
Frustrating ending
Confusing subplots
Sketchy ideas
Unimportant message
Overbearing
Overworked
Ineffective
Forgettable
Words to Describe Characters
Original
Stereotyped
Believable
Unbelievable
Well-rounded
Flat
Multi-dimensional
Static*
Well-developed
Flawed
Words to Describe the Author’s Writing Style
Descriptive, filled with
Boring, no imagery
metaphors
Filled with clichés
Original
Slow-moving
Lively, full of action
Clodding, jumpy
Poetic or lyrical
Lapp, Diane et al. Teaching All the Children: Strategies for Developing Literacy in an Urban Setting. New York: The
Guilford Press, 2004, p.288
45 Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003, p. 277.
44
32
Now we know what we mean by carefully choosing the vocabulary words we teach. What do we mean by
a limited number? Unfortunately, there is no hard and fast rule to how many words a secondary student
should be presented with in a week or in a lesson, although most secondary teachers, in both English and
other content areas, thoroughly teach between 5 and 10 new words a week.
After you have chosen a limited number of tier two or three words to teach your students, consider how
you will introduce and explain those words. As you create
student-friendly definitions, keep in mind two basic steps:
Some Student-Friendly Definitions
(1) characterize the word and explain how it is used, and

Subtle describes something that is
(2) explain the meaning of the word in simple, everyday
difficult to see or detect.
language.46 Think about how you use the word most often

To Manipulate means to handle
and avoid overloading your students with all of its
something in a way that gets the results
you desire.
multiple meanings. To facilitate student understanding,

Static describes something that is still and
define new words by using everyday, student-friendly
unchanging. (Tier 2 definition, taught in an
language; it’s helpful to include the words something,
English class)
47
someone, or describes in your explanations.

Static describes charges on an object or
molecule that don’t move. (Tier 3
2. Create meaningful interactions with the words in a
definition, taught in a science class).
variety of formats and contexts.
None of us want to learn words by just looking up the
definition in the dictionary. And, that strategy will rarely work for our students because the dictionary
definition may contain vague language or multiple meanings. Even if the definition were clear enough for
our students, simply reading the dictionary entry and moving on will not help our students grasp the
meaning of a word and use it appropriately in the future:
Methods that provide only definitional information about each to-be-learned word did not
produce a reliable effect on comprehension. Also, drill-and-practice methods, which
involve multiple repetitions of the same type of information about a target word using
only associative processing, did not appear to have reliable effectives on comprehension.
The implication for teaching is strong: it takes more than definitional knowledge to know
a word.48
Providing student-friendly definitions of a few targeted vocabulary words is a significant step to help
students to acquire new words. Here we will focus on a handful of strategies that will support students in
meaningfully interacting with the words, each of which can be used in any content area. The five
approaches we will consider are:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
Semantic Mapping
Using Word Parts (Morphemic Analysis)
Concept Definition Map
Frayer Model
Word/Concept Sorts
Beck, Isabel et al. Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. New York: The Guilford Press, 2002, p.
35.
47 Ibid p. 39.
48 Allen, Janet. Words, Words, Words. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers, 1999, p. 8.
46
33
The Foundations of Word Recognition, Vocabulary, and Fluency
(1) Semantic Mapping. This approach applies the graphic organizer concept to a set of vocabulary words,
requiring students to make a map of the connections among the words they are studying. Not only is this
an excellent way for students to build mental scaffolds for learning new words, but this process also
offers a check on the teacher, as carefully chosen tier three vocabulary will usually have relationships
conducive to this sort of semantic mapping. Effective vocabulary instruction using a semantic map has
four parts, which would apply to classification of tier two words found in a class novel or tier three words
found in a seventh grade math class.49
1. Brainstorming. The teacher and class brainstorm ideas having to do with a
particular unit of study or theme. For example, a seventh grade class immersed in a
unit on measurement might brainstorm vocabulary words related to measurement.
Students might suggest length, width, ruler, inch, meter, and many other relevant
terms. The teacher provides less obvious ideas such as clock, circumference, and
angle and contributes additional ideas to the list.
2. Mapping. The teacher guides the students to examine the list of ideas and create
three of four categories in which to classify the words. In our seventh grade math
example, students group the words into categories of tools used to measure, units of
measurement, and types of measurement. The teacher and/or students draw a map
to represent the categories and subset ideas.
3. Reading. After drawing the map, the class reads an appropriate passage about the
topic. For example, during a lesson on measuring the volume of liquids, students
might read about metric units for capacity, the tools used to measure liquids, and
formulas for determining volume. Depending on the reading abilities of the students,
the selection might be read aloud, read in partners, or read individually.
4. Completing the map. After reading the text, the teacher and students discuss new
ideas they have learned and return to examine the map. Often, students will add a
category to the map, as well as many ideas to the categories. After reading about
measuring and calculating volume, students might realize they need to add a
category for formula, as then now know Volume = length x width x height or V =
height x r2. Especially in a content area classroom, steps three and four of this
process could repeat any number of times as students build their word knowledge in
a particular unit of study.
Stahl and Stahl in Baumann, James and Edward Kame’enui. Vocabulary Instruction: Research to Practice. New
York: The Guildford Press, 2004.
49
34
Consider the following semantic map produced by our seventh grade math students:
Tools
Units
Measurement
Metric
meter
cm
km
liter
gram
kg
Celsius
ruler
tape
measure
scales
cups
clocks
Formulas
Types
Length
width
height
perimeter
circumference
Cover
area
surface
area
Volume
volume
Other
capacity
weight
mass
time
temperature
angle
Circle:
A=r2
C= 2r
Volume:
V=lxwxh
V = h x r2
(2) Using Word Parts (Morphemic Analysis). Morphemes, or word parts, are the smallest meaningful
units in the English language. These meaningful units are classified by type: free morphemes stand
alone as a meaningful word (such as man, blue, she, and under) while bound morphemes (roots, prefixes,
and suffixes) work as meaningful units only when combined with other morphemes (such as revise,
telephone, underline, and unknown). Being familiar with various morphemes builds word recognition
skills. Mounting research indicates that attention to morphemes—which at the secondary level should
focus on prefixes, suffixes, and root words—also supports students’ vocabulary growth.50 If you consider
that knowing only 20 prefixes allows us to determine the meaning of nearly 3,000 words, the importance
of morphology becomes clear.51
You’ll need to explain to your students why you are teaching them the meanings of small parts of words,
and how breaking a word into meaningful parts, knowing the meanings of those parts, and putting them
back together again will help them to determine the word’s meaning. When first introducing
morphemes, it is helpful to illuminate the network of words students can read and understand by
knowing only one word part. Consider the following snapshot of a fifth grade classroom in which the
teacher shows his students how Latin word roots work within words:
“In thousands of words, there is a word part that is like a base word in that prefixes and
suffixes attach to it. Unlike base words, however, this word part usually cannot stand by
itself as a word. Still, it is the most important part of the word in which it occurs. We call
it a word root. Let me show you one that’s in a couple of words you know quite well.”
Templeton in Baumann, James and Edward Kame’enui. Vocabulary Instruction: Research to Practice. New York:
The Guildford Press, 2004, p. 120.
51 Graves in Baumann, James and Edward Kame’enui. Vocabulary Instruction: Research to Practice. New York: The
Guildford Press, 2004, p. 87.
50
35
The Foundations of Word Recognition, Vocabulary, and Fluency
Mr. Ramirez then writes fracture and fraction on the board: “We know what these two
words are and what they mean. What happens when you fracture your arm? [You break
it.] What do you do when you divide something into fractions? [Mr. Ramirez elicits from
the students that you break whole numbers down into fractions.] Good! Now, both of the
words fracture and fraction have the word root fract in them. Is fract a word? [No.] It’s a
very important part of the words fracture and fraction, however. We call fract a word
root. It comes from a word in Latin that means ‘to break.’ Remember our discussion
about the history of English and how so many words and word parts in English come from
Greek and Latin languages? So, fract is a Latin word root and it lives on in the words
fracture and fraction.”
“Word roots are everywhere! Let’s look at these words. [Mr. Ramirez writes construct,
construction, and structure in a column on the board.] What’s the same in these three
words? [Students point out struct.] Good! You’ve found the word root! Now, let’s think
about what this word root might mean—think about what happens when construction
workers construct a building or structure. [Students engage in a brief discussion in which
the meaning “to build” emerges.] Right! Construct means ‘to build something’ and
structure is another term we often use to refer to a building or something that has been
built.”
Next, Mr. Ramirez adds the word instruct to the list and asks the students how the
meaning of “build” might apply to the word. Through discussion, students come to the
realization that instruct refers to how learning or knowledge is “built.”52
Teachers often guide their students to use a graphic organizer such as a root web to help them sort and
classify related words, or to determine a definition by word part analysis.53 These graphic
representations of relationships between words help students store and retrieve information from their
memories, and also can be used for quick reference if they’re kept in a vocabulary notebook.
Root Web
audible
audience
auditorium
aud
auditory
audition
audio
52
53
inaudible
Bear, Donald et al. Words Their Way, 3rd edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003, p. 258.
Allen, Janet. Words, Words, Words. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers, 1999, p. 55.
36
Definition by Word Part Analysis
Target Word:
Once he reached the age of
thirteen, his behavior was
completely unpredictable.
predict
un
means
means
Know
ahead of
time
not
Other words I know with these parts:
unpopular, unwanted, unhealthy, predictable, prediction.
Definition by Analysis:
not able to guess or know ahead of time what he might do.
(3) Concept Definition Map. In this method, students are asked to complete a graphic organizer that
ultimately creates an extensive definition of the word: What is it (a definition)? What is it like (some of its
properties)? What are some examples of it (some common examples with which students will be
familiar)? The teacher will need to be involved in this process, especially by suggesting examples of the
word that will prompt students to provide more examples and allow students to fill in what the word is
like. Consider the following example:
What is it like?
What is it?
one
substance
dissolves
into another
A mixture
What are some
examples?
particles
evenly
mixed
Solution
mouthwash
perfume
instant
tea &
water
Salt water
most
solutions
are clear
even
if colored
37
The Foundations of Word Recognition, Vocabulary, and Fluency
(4) Frayer Model. This strategy requires students to explore a concept or word by looking at four
attributes: Definition, Characteristics, Examples, and Non-Examples. The teacher should first model
a sample Frayer Model using an easy word or one that the class has already learned. Students then
work in pairs, small groups, or as individuals to complete their diagram for each word or concept.
The teacher may need to prompt students with examples and non-examples, to which students can
later add and draw out the characteristics. This example shows a student’s Frayer Model for a
polygon. The process of creating this model required the student to consider the concept of a
polygon from a number of angles, thereby reinforcing internalization of the concept.
Definition
Characteristics
(in your words)
Closed
Plane figure
More than 2 straight sides
Two-dimensional
a shape that is a closed figure
that is bounded by three or
more line segments
Polygon
Pentagon
Hexagon
Square
Trapezoid
Rhombus
Circle
Cone
Arrow
Cylinder
Examples
Non-Examples
(5) Word/Concept Sorts. This is another vocabulary instruction method that allows students to
meaningfully interact with words in a new context or format. Students copy words onto index cards, postit notes, or slips of paper cut in 3x5 pieces, one word per card. For example, a middle school science
teacher might provide the following words during a unit on the human body:
Spinal cord
Small intestine
Oxygen/Carbon Dioxide
Hemoglobin
Neuron
Erythrocytes
Aorta
Platelets
Salivary glands
Brain stem
Esophagus
Digestive enzymes
Individually, in pairs, or in groups, students sort the words into categories. Depending on the familiarity
the students have with the material, it may be appropriate for the teacher to choose some or all of the
categories. As they become more knowledgeable, encourage students to create categories of their own.
Students might sort the above vocabulary the following ways:


38
Corresponding body systems (nervous = spinal cord, neuron, brain stem; digestive = salivary
glands, esophagus, digestive enzymes, small intestine; and circulatory = aorta, erythrocytes,
hemoglobin, platelets, oxygen/carbon dioxide);
Similar structures (elongated organs or organ parts = spinal cord, small intestine,
esophagus, aorta, brain stem; cells = erythrocytes, platelets, neurons, salivary glands;
molecules = hemoglobin, digestive enzymes, oxygen/carbon dioxide).
Like so many of these strategies, this approach requires students to engage the conceptual meaning of
the word, transforming their understanding beyond rote and superficial memorization to an internalized,
long-term base of knowledge.
3. Ensure students have multiple exposures to the new words.
Students need multiple exposures to and opportunities to use the new words—in an appropriate context,
not in isolation—to have it become a part of their vocabulary. In fact, “words should be used in a
meaningful context between ten and fifteen times.”54 After teaching the vocabulary words of focus for an
upcoming unit or novel, one practical strategy is to integrate those words into your speech whenever
possible and praise students who do the same. While critical for all teachers, doing this could vary in
difficulty depending on the content area; it might be rather challenging for a secondary math teacher (it
takes a creative thinker to slip the word “vertex” into everyday conversation) yet relatively easy for a
secondary English teacher. Consider the reflection of Janet Allen, author of Words, Words, Words, once
she discovered the importance of using vocabulary words in her speech:
My students didn’t use the words I assigned from a word list. They used the words they
heard on television and radio; they used the words from the music they listened to; and
they used the words I used with them…When students asked me for a pen or pencil, I had
one of two responses: “sure you can. I seem to have a plethora of pencils today,” or
“Sorry. I seem to have a dearth of pencils today.” Soon I heard students saying the same
words with each other.55
While a math teacher may not be able to easily integrate those “tier three” words into her speech,
remember that word walls and other classroom print can serve as some of the many exposures students
need to move a word to long-term memory. Rather than just posting the words, provide a visual
representation of its meaning (for example, draw a parallelogram or mitochondria next to the words
parallelogram or mitochondria) or post the student-friendly definitions of the word. Consider assigning
students the task of identifying the words outside of class in a variety of print media (and post their
results on the wall). Creating a highly verbal and print rich environment will go a long way in building the
vocabulary of your students.
As occasions arise, also point out the shades of meaning that different words have in different contexts.
As Oliver Wendell Holmes aptly stated, “a word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin
of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstance and time in
which it is used.” This applies to words as common as run (to run a mile, a run in a pair of stockings, a
run on milk and bread before a storm, a run in baseball) and as rare as lodestone (a rock with magnetic
properties in the science book, perhaps a character with a magnetic personality in a novel).56
How do I assess vocabulary mastery?
The conditions in which students most thoroughly learn vocabulary words described above give us insight
into the most effective means of assessing our students’ mastery of vocabulary words. As you know,
among the keys to student learning are varied exposures to new words and always ensuring a meaningful
context for those exposures. Those principles also serve as guidelines for your assessments.
54
Ibid p. 35.
Ibid p. 3.
56 Ibid p. 6.
55
39
The Foundations of Word Recognition, Vocabulary, and Fluency
Vocabulary assessments, like vocabulary instruction, should not focus on rote memorization, but rather
the layers involved in really knowing a word. Consider the
following examples, all of which force students to think of
I created an in-class game called Thumbs Up.
the meaning of the word within a larger context:
Anytime I would say a vocabulary word or read







one in a book, they would give a “thumbs up.”
We would stop what we were doing and talk
The opposite of ___________ is subtle. What is
about the word. The highlight of my year was at
the word? What does subtle mean?
an assembly with our principal: she said one of
Explain the literal and figurative definitions of
our words and about 70 thumbs went up. I later
the word virulent. Give an example of each.
explained why that happened, and she was
Match the picture to the vocabulary word each
impressed.
picture best represents.
Would it be possible to assuage a parking
Craig Brandenburg, Houston ’01
ticket? Why or why not?
5th Grade
Identify something that is arid. Explain why it is
so.
Give an example of a perfunctory action. Explain why it is so.
Ask students to place vocabulary on a continuum, and to explain their placement of the
various words:57
Freezing
Cool
Tepid
Hot
Boiling
By building our students’ word recognition and vocabulary, we are setting them up to be more “fluent”
readers, a crucial skill discussed in the next section.
III. Fluency: The Bridge from Decoding to Comprehension
Remember that fluency is defined as the ability to read a given text with appropriate accuracy, speed, and
expression. The umbrella skill of fluency can be broken down into automaticity (rapid and automatic
word recognition) and prosody (reading with engaging expression and recognition of punctuation). One
way some teachers help students understand the concept of fluency, and reflect on whether or not they
are fluent readers, is to ask, “did you read it like you talk?”
Fluency is one of the key indicators of a proficient reader, as it is necessary for true comprehension of a
text. As explained earlier, if a student spends time sounding out words or stringing syllables together,
her slowed pace prevents her from being able to focus on the overall meaning of what she is reading.
Research shows that “since the average individual can hold only seven to ten bits of information in shortterm memory, the disfluent reader expends cognitive energy primarily on figuring out words and
pronunciations. This leaves little memory capacity to focus on comprehending the information.”58 When
a reader’s decoding skills are automatic, her cognitive energy can be spent on making meaning of the
text.
57
Ibid p. 52.
Block, Cathy Collins and Michael Pressley. Comprehension Instruction: Research-Based Best Practices. New
York: The Guilford Press, 2002.
58
40
Therefore, to help our students comprehend a text,
we must focus on building automatic recognition of
words and overall fluency. While fluency is the
bridge between decoding and comprehension, the
ability to simply decode words doesn’t necessarily
make a student fluent and therefore able to
comprehend a passage; it is the repeated exposure
to words they can decode that leads to automatic
recognition
and
thus
the
beginnings
of
comprehension. The amount of exposure necessary
to move a word into one’s “automatic recognition
bank” varies based on the level of reader:
My 7th grade science textbook happened to come with
a CD of various voices reading each section of the
text. I honestly didn’t know at first why having the
students listen to the CD while following along in the
text helped their comprehension. But it did. And, my
students quickly preferred listening to the clear
smooth reading of the voices, rather than the more
halting, quiet reading of their classmates. My
students and I eventually realized—and discussed—
that by listening to the CD, every student’s brain could
focus on understanding what they were hearing,
thereby increasing comprehension.
Margaret Cate, D.C. ‘98
For students who are quickly becoming independent
Selection Associate, Teach For America
readers, they may need to see a word about ten times
before it moves into their bank of easily recognized
words. However, our dependent readers who are struggling with word recognition may need to
see this word as many as forty times…these students, more than any others, must have repeated
and regular opportunities to read stories at their independent reading level.59
Although we’ll talk more about ways to build students’ fluency in the next section, one general principle
for increasing students’ fluency is frequent and varied reading of selections at the independent reading
level. In general, texts at the frustrational level should be avoided or used only when significant support
in comprehension is provided, as discussed in chapters three and four.
Strategies to Increase Fluency
In an elementary classroom, strategies to increase students’ fluency include (1) modeling appropriate
fluency during teacher read-alouds, (2) choral reading (when the teacher and students read out loud
together, therefore highlighting the pauses that happen for commas and periods), (3) building the number
of words students can recognize on sight and read automatically and (4) giving students opportunities to
read “just right” texts (texts that are on their independent level) either during sustained silent reading
time or at home. Many of these same strategies, modified for secondary students, will help build your
students’ fluency as well.
Strategy #1: Model good fluency.
Because “students need to hear fluent reading in order to become fluent readers,”60 one important but
simple strategy is to read aloud to students, modeling appropriate expression, phrasing, and pacing.
Fluency expert Timothy Rasinski, author of The Fluent Reader, notes:
When you draw attention to how you’re reading, you help students see that meaning in
reading is carried not only in the words, but also in the way the words are expressed. For
example, you might contrast a fluent rendition of a passage with a disfluent, labored, and
word-by-word reading of it, then ask the students which reading they preferred and why.
Without a doubt, the students will pick the more fluent reading. This becomes an
important lesson in how they should read orally when given the opportunity. 61
Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003, p. 205.
Ibid, p. 215.
61 Rasinski, Timothy. The Fluent Reader. New York: Scholastic, 2003, pp. 26-27.
59
60
41
The Foundations of Word Recognition, Vocabulary, and Fluency
This doesn’t mean that you teach a whole lesson on fluent and choppy reading, or that you spend the
class period reading the whole physics chapter to students. However, if many of your students struggle
with fluency, you might read a section of the text out loud and point out that your voice rises at the end of
sentences that are questions, that you take a breath between phrases, or that you emphasize the text
inside dashes. For a secondary teacher, this sort of instruction should occur only when necessary and
occur in a matter of minutes during a lesson. While students are listening to a passage being read aloud,
they should follow along under the text with their pencil or pen. This highlights the phrasing and pauses
for punctuation employed by good readers, as students’ pencils should pause at the appropriate points
too. This strategy has a side benefit as well: a quick glance up while you are reading will show you which
students are on task and following along.
Having students read aloud together, what is commonly called “choral reading” and used frequently in
elementary classrooms, also builds fluency. If your text includes a dialogue, you might assign different
groups of students to chorally read the words of a particular character. By reading a conversation
between two characters as a group, the voices of the more fluent readers in the room will guide students
who are struggling with fluency.
Books on tape are also excellent tools for giving students an opportunity to hear a variety of voices read in
a fluent manner. If books on tape or a textbook on CD aren’t readily available, make your own. If you can,
entice other teachers at your school to read a passage into a tape recorder – not only will students have
the opportunity to hear a fluent reader, they’ll get a kick out of hearing the math teacher or school
secretary read to them! Consider the results produced by using a book on tape in the seventh grade
science classroom of Aaron Pomis (North Carolina ’02). Clearly, the effects went beyond increased
fluency in his students:
Only one-third of my homeroom students had passed the sixth grade North Carolina End
of Grade Reading Test the year before, and the rest of my 120 seventh grade students
were not much better off. To combat this lack of reading proficiency, we began listening
to The Hot Zone on tape during our human body unit. The book gives detailed accounts of
Ebola outbreaks in Africa and the United States. Student spent time listening intently
and then working in groups, where they practiced asking questions, making predictions,
drawing connections, creating illustrations, and developing summaries. Students were
assessed weekly on both the book’s science content as well as their own comprehension
skills. By listening to the book on tape, which allowed them increased practice in reading
comprehension strategies because they weren’t struggling with simply reading the
words on the page, my students achieved the school’s highest increase in reading scores
on the seventh grade End of Grade Reading Test.
You may wonder if listening to the teacher read aloud, requiring students to follow along with their pen,
“reading” a book on tape, or engaging in choral reading makes secondary students feel “dumb.” Corps
members report that when they are open and honest with students about the need to improve their
reading skills, and ensure students are aware of the goal they are shooting for, students typically respond
positively. Shannon Saunders (Rio Grande Valley ’03) agrees: “You have to be real with your kids. Some
strategies might seem babyish at first to middle or high school students, but when you’re honest with
them about their literacy levels, and they understand the end goal, then they will be much more
invested.”
42
Strategy #2: Use word walls to increase the number of words students recognize “automatically.”
Remember that instant recognition of words is one of the key ingredients of good fluency, which explains
why this strategy, first introduced in the section on word recognition, is reiterated here. Word walls build
the number of words students recognize automatically, which leads to improved fluency. To build fluency
in reading your content area texts, your word wall should
include the “tier three” words of your subject, words
We have a word wall in my room at the very front
and it grows from 10 to 240 by the end of the
should be organized alphabetically, and words should be
year. We constantly refer to it while we’re doing
in font large enough for students to easily read from their
read-alouds to characterize tone, mood, and
seats. And remember, word walls lose their utility when
feelings as well as utilizing the words in our own
they become mere wallpaper in your classroom; you
writing.
should refer to your word wall frequently while reading,
during lectures and demonstrations, and as students
Martin Winchester, RGV ’95
work on assignments. Quick work with vocabulary flash
Chief Schools Officer, IDEA Public Schools
cards also leads to automatic word recognition.
Strategy #3: Foster independent fluency through prompting, not correction. 62
It’s not an uncommon scene: the struggling reader pausing and looking up expectantly to the teacher to
supply the word, or other classmates jumping in and providing the word as she struggles through it. In
the long run, these crutches cause dependence on the teacher and classmates, rather than a growing
ability to determine a word. Instead of correcting, it is better to for the teacher to prompt the student with
the following statements or questions:




Can you divide the word into syllables and sound it out that way?
Do you see a part of the word you recognize?
Can you get your mouth ready to say the first few letters?
What word would make sense at this point?
If prompting with these questions doesn’t do the trick, provide the student with the correct pronunciation
of the word and ask her to read the entire sentence again, reading the troublesome word independently
this time (as opposed to providing her with the word and then allowing her to read on). Teach students to
add words like this to the class or individual word wall if it is a high frequency word for your content area.
Strategy #4: Track students’ fluency over time with
repeated readings.
Research shows that one of the best ways to improve
fluency is through re-reading of texts.63 This could mean
reading a passage through to students out loud and then
asking them to read it independently, or encouraging
English students to reread their favorite short stories or
novels during sustained silent reading time or for
homework. Of course, you need to insert yourself in this
process in order to track students’ fluency growth over
time; you might meet periodically (three times a year) and
conduct the one to five minute Timed Reading Exercise
explained in chapter one, charting their change in fluency
rates and levels over time. As with any academic skill,
I track words per minute with my students, and
made them a bar graph that they color in every
time they read for me. They know that the higher
that bar gets, the closer they get to improving
their reading level. Coloring in the bar graph
motivates many of them. It becomes a
competition: the older, less fluent version of
themselves versus the improving, faster reading,
trying-to-get-their-reading-level-up version.
Laura Brewer, D.C. ‘04
Senior Managing Director of Institute,
New York
Teach For America
Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003, p. 217.
Schoenbach, Ruth et al. Reading For Understanding: A Guide to Improving Reading in Middle and High School
Classrooms. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999, p. 19.
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The Foundations of Word Recognition, Vocabulary, and Fluency
show a student her progress in that area and she will be more motivated to continue to work hard and
improve. A sample “Chart for Tracking Students’ Oral Reading Rate” is included in the Secondary
Literacy Toolkit (p. 10), which can be found online at the Resource Exchange on TFANet. 
Conclusion
This chapter has explored the most common areas of weakness in our secondary readers: word
recognition, vocabulary, and fluency. As is hopefully now apparent, these three areas overlap
significantly with one another. Word recognition, such as recognition of word parts, prefixes, and
suffixes, will help with vocabulary. In order to have appropriate fluency, students’ must have strong word
recognition skills. If fluency is strong, students are more likely to be able to focus on the meanings of the
words and overall passage, which allows students to determine the meanings of unfamiliar vocabulary
words through context clues. Strong word recognition, vocabulary knowledge, and appropriate fluency
all lead to greater reading comprehension, the topic of the next chapter.

Build word recognition by helping students break down words into manageable chunks, use
meaningful word parts (affixes and roots) to decipher a word, and possess automatic recognition of
words through use of word walls. Remember that cajoling students to “just sound it out,” or
reading the word for the student when he stumbles with the pronunciation, proves an either
ineffective or short-term solution to poor word recognition.

Students’ vocabulary knowledge will increase if you abide by the following principles of effective
vocabulary instruction: carefully choose a limited number of words and provide a direct, studentfriendly explanation of their meanings, create meaningful interactions with the words in a variety of
formats and contexts, and ensure the students have multiple exposures to the new words.

Raise students’ fluency, the bridge between decoding and comprehension, by modeling good
fluency, increasing the number of words students recognize automatically, prompting rather than
correcting students when they stumble over a word, and tracking students’ fluency over time.
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